'Roseanne' Recap: Finale's Happy Ending Ruins A Great Performance

For the remaining episodes of its 10th season, Patch gave weekly recaps for "Roseanne," the revival of the popular sitcom. And we posted these recaps on Elgin Patch because that's the nearest community to the Conner family's fictional Illinois home of Lanford.

The following recap talks about the season 10 finale of "Roseanne" that aired Tuesday, May 22. Be warned: There are potential spoilers below if you haven't already seen the show.

Before you read about the latest episode, check out Patch's previous "Roseanne" Recaps:

• Episode 3, "Roseanne Gets the Chair"
• Episode 4, "Eggs Over, Not Easy"
• Episode 5, "Darlene v. David"
• Episode 6, "No Country for Old Women"
• Episode 7, "Go Cubs"
• Episode 8, "Netflix & Pill"

Caught up? Good. Here's a breakdown of the highlights — and lowlights — from the final episode of the season.

"Roseane" (Season 10, Episode 9): "Knee Deep"

What Worked: The frustration of a lifetime barely getting by. This inaugural revival season waited until the finale to let John Goodman shine as Dan Conner like he did in the series' 1990s heyday. In Tuesday's episode, Dan struggles with scraping together enough money to pay for Roseanne's (Roseanne Barr) knee surgery by hiring a crew of non-union, undocumented immigrants for a drywall job, depriving his best friend, Chuck (James Pickens Jr.), of work.

And that's before the Conners' basement floods after torrential rains tear through Illinois.

Dan's finally pushed to his breaking point after he's confronted by a flooded home, an emotionally hurt friend and a physically hurt wife. He unleashes his aggravation by repeatedly clubbing a door with crowbar while he wades calf-deep through his basement, a violent display that's as cathartic as it is painful for both Dan and the audience.

But Dan's Kyle Schwarber impression isn't a response to simply to being thrice-cursed on a single day. It's a reaction to an adult life of constant hard work that only ever keeps him and his family barely above the poverty line.

"I always told you: If I'm eating, you're eating. I'm not eating," Dan explains to Chuck, delivering that final sentence in a gentle, just-above-a-whisper that conveys his surrender to his lot in life better and more poignantly than a three-page soliloquy. This is a spent man, exhausted by his compromises caused by circumstance, who still knows he has miles to go before he can sleep.

It's criminally negligent how much we take for granted John Goodman. Because he's such a physical presence, it's easy to forgot how each of his movie and TV roles feel distinct and, more importantly, lived in. His Dan Conner is nothing like his Karl Mundt from "Barton Fink," which is nothing like his Walter Sobchak from "The Big Lebowski," which is nothing like his Creighton Bernette from "Treme" (yes, I'm one of the 12 people who watched David Simon's HBO follow-up to "The Wire).

"Roseanne" — the original run and this current, uneven incarnation — might have been a star vehicle for Barr. But it's always been a two-seater that she's smartly shared with Goodman. Thankfully, he was finally allowed behind the wheel this season.

What Didn't: The 30-minute sitcom solution. All that tragedy of the working man pathos stirred up by Goodman's performance, unfortunately, is undermined by a tied-up-in-a-neat-little-bow happy ending. The Conners are saved from financial ruin after the President Whose Name Shall Not be Spoken on the Show declares a state of emergency in Illinois.

That means Dan can have FEMA subsidize the cost of fixing the basement. Because he can do the work for half the amount the feds will give him, Roseanne's surgery can be paid for out of what's left over. Hoo-flippin'-ray.

For a series that never shied away from leaving its characters in less-than-desirable waters — the Conners routinely lost jobs and businesses, and Dan even lost his life at the end of season 9 (he got better) — the cheery wrap-up to this season is a bit of a stumper. Has age softened the series' star to the point that she doesn't want to be part of a show that continually deals with the harsh realities of a blue collar lifestyle? Or perhaps Barr and the writers felt viewers have had their fill of the harsh realities of actual reality and wanted to see the Conners take a victory lap instead of taking it on the chin.

That's So '90s, Part 1: For 10 episodes between 1991 and 1996, the late Shirley Winters played Roseanne's baseball cap-wearing grandmother, Nana Mary. In the revival's finale, Roseanne uncovers one of the fiery matriarch's chapeaux, a brown trucker hat that reads "Heavily Medicated For Your Protection."

That's So '90s, Part 2: Later in the episode, Darlene's daughter, Harris (Emma Kenney of "Shameless" fame), finds the Moe head from Dan's Three Stooges Halloween costume, a callback to the season 3 episode "Trick or Treat," which was co-written by Chuck Lorre, co-creator of "The Big Bang Theory."

Roseanne even makes a sly reference to the series' string of inventive costumes in the Halloween episodes, remarking to Harris, "We were famous for that stuff in these parts."

Best Line: Usually in these recaps, I've stuck with a one-liner or setup-and-punchline exchange. But since it's the season finale why not go out big?

Roseanne: They took all of these senior citizens from one of those old folks homes and put them on the roof of the building.

Dan: That's great news.

Jackie: But it's also kinda sad in a way.

Of course, Dan meant that it was great news that the weather could deliver the family out from under its current money woes. But Jackie takes it the wrong way, and Laurie Metcalf delivers one of the darkest zingers you'll ever hear on a network sitcom.

Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) and Dan (John Goodman) celebrate a rare happy ending in the season 10 finale of "Roseanne." (Photo by Adam Rose | ABC)